The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide articles from January 2009

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide archives from January 2009

Jan.-Feb. 2009: "fifteenth anniversary issue".
January 1, 2009... And so we mark the completion of our fifteenth year of publication and the start of our sixteenth. One could go on about how impossible this seems, how time has flown, or how much has happened in the interim, all of which would be true. But it...

Transcending our righteous anger: the election: presidential promise and the heartbreak of Prop 8.(GUEST OPINIONS)
January 1, 2009... Our first collective response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California was denial. For two days after the election there was no concession by the losing side. Then came rage, as we confronted the great design flaw in American democracy,...

Proposition 8 and black homophobia.(influence of African American voters on the passing of the law against same sex marriage)
January 1, 2009... I have learned as both a pastor and also as a member of several minority groups--African-American, woman, and lesbian--that popular opinion on a civil rights issue does not always match the morally right position. More often than not, the moral...

On the PR failures of the anti-8 side.(failure of the campaign against Proposition 8, a law against same sex marriages)
January 1, 2009... After the passage of Proposition 8, the GLBT community in California and nationwide reacted with understandable anger and resistance. It's great to see this outpouring of political activism after the fact, but it's also disappointing that more...

Blame the God of woe for Prop 8's passage.(law against same sex marriage)
January 1, 2009... Michigan just legalized medical pot. Liddy Dole is gone. John Sununu is gone. The Dems picked up at least six Senate seats. North Carolina went blue for the first time in more than three decades. A teen girl in California, for the third time...

Author replies to Johnston's critique.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: I completely concur with Jill Johnston's charge that my Rauschenberg obituary [Sept.-Oct. 08 issue] was "written from a viewpoint outside the artist, not from the, or a [sic], artist's view looking out." As I cannot presume...

Morning becomes presentable.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: There's an interesting story about the George Quaintance painting. Morning, that makes an appearance in Jeff Auer's article, 'Cowboys on the Cover of a Magazine" [Nov.-Dec. 08 issue]. The painting is shown as it appeared on...

Challenging GLAAD's achievements.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: I read Joan Garry's self-congratulatory "Taking On Dr. Laura and The Times" in November-December issue, and must note that I do not remember GLAAD [Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation] "taking on" Dr. Laura either...

Stick to a legal model of gay rights.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: Barney Frank and the G&LR are both treasures of the gay community. And both of them made a significant and alarming mistake in the September-October issue. In his article, Mr. Frank uses phraseology such as "GLBT rights......

Finding happiness in the 50's.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: After reading Martin Duberman's remarks at the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus dinner in June 2008 [Sept.-Oct. 2008 issue], I was once again dismayed at the apparently universal opinion that all gay men of my generation (born...

More memories of John Glines.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor; Your Artist's Profile on John Glines wrought back fond memories of "The Hines," and of the time that I, as a young heater student, approached John with the dea of directing a production of Jean Cocteau's telephone monologue,...

Mea culpa, Walter Pater.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... To the Editor: In response to William A. Percy's letter to the editor [Sept.-Oct. 08 issue] concerning a mistake in my review of Heather Love's Feeling Backward [July-Aug. 08], the mistake was mine and not Love's. I seem to have placed...

Passages of artists and activists in 2008.(IN MEMORIAM)(In memoriam)
January 1, 2009... As is our annual tradition, we remember the lives and accomplishments of some notable members of the GLBT community and allies who died during the past year. Paul Gunn Allen, a prolific poet, novelist, and literary scholar, died after a...

Sitcom nation.(BTW)(extension of the laws on domestic partnership benefits to gay couples)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Sitcom Nation At a Senate hearing in Washington last September on domestic partnership benefits, a spokesman for the Bush Administration argued against a bill to extend family benefits to GLBT federal civilian employees. This was par for the...

About those fifty million Frenchmen.(BTW)(Comedian Jerry Lewis' views about gays)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... About Those Fifty Million Frenchmen Comedian Jerry Lewis, still madcap at age 82, caused a stir in Australia when he insulted his hosts by replying to a question about their fondness for the game of cricket, "Oh, cricket? It's a fag game," at...

Tattoo you.(BTW)(London Stock Exchange chaplain Rev. Peter Mullen's views on homosexual practices)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Tattoo You Understandable outrage erupted when the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, Rev. Peter Mullen, declared on his bog: "It is time that religious believers began to recommend... discouragements of homosexual practices after the...

Trickle-down theories.(BTW)(public reaction to a sculpture of the humpbacked flute player called Kokopelli)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Trickle-Down Theories A sculpture of the humpbacked flute player Kokopelli was removed from the front of Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah, after complaints from a local group calling itself the "Values Committee." Despite...

Double reversal.(BTW)(Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner who changed his gender from male to female reverts back to being male)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Double Reversal A Los Angeles Times sportswriter who changed her gender from male to female has reverted back to his original identity as a man. Mike Penner, who blogged at length on the Times website about his transition to a woman starting in...

The Castro: origins of the age of milk.(history of Castro District, San Francisco, California and its first gay mayor Harvey Milk)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... SAN FRANCISCO'S CASTRO DISTRICT was the first big-city neighborhood in the United States where openly gay people elected one of their own to represent them in City Hall. Harvey Milk, the man who was elected in this capacity in 1977, soon became...

Gay wasn't so grim in 1940's fiction.(history of gay literature)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... SIX YEARS AGO, I began working on an anthology entitled Pulp Friction, which started out as a light-hearted look at the pulp novels of the 1950's and 1960's. While Pulp Friction was never intended to be a throwaway book, I originally envisioned...

One night in swarthmore in defense of Columbia.(Poem)
January 1, 2009... my body unfurled under your touch my fern hands clasped yours held tight back pressed back against back i moistened through kisses and moans i worked your vertebra you worked my seventeen year body i consent now for a...

From Plato to Will & Grace.(history of homosexuality and literature)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... NOWADAYS young people no doubt search the Web for information about homosexuality, but the first thing I read on the subject appeared on a card in the card catalogue of Widener Library in Cambridge, Mass.: Plato's Symposium. How I knew that in...

Three playwrights.(Mart Crowley, Edward Albee, and Tennessee Williams drawn by Charles Hefling)(Cartoon)
January 1, 2009... For the first ten years of this magazine's existence (1994-2003), Charles Hefling contributed dazzling caricatures of famous writers and artists such as the three shown here. From left: Mart Crowley, Edward Albee, and Tennessee Williams. ...

At Karaoke.(Poem)
January 1, 2009... The night after he got shot I flew down to the bars, mace ready at my side, relaxing at the doors. He was just a man I'd met that summer, when everyone took their drinks outside and sat in chairs on the corner of Eager. He was...

Was Joan of Arc genetically male?(Biography)
January 1, 2009... CONTROVERSY about Joan of Arc's gender first exploded in 1428, and its shock wave has kept rolling for nearly 600 years. Today, historians and commentators still argue fiercely about Joan. The Roman Church claims her as a champion of Catholic...

Poetry as a 'disordering of the senses'.(INTERVIEW)(Interview)
January 1, 2009... BACK IN 1953, noted scholar Wallace Fowlie observed of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) that "Editions of his work multiply each year. More than 500 books about him have been written in all languages." In the intervening years, books on the visionary...

The gayness of Grey Gardens.(a documentary movie by David and Albert Maysles)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... OUT OF ALL the thousands of films I have watched as a student, critic, or university instructor, undoubtedly one of the strangest experiences I've ever had was sitting through a 25th anniversary screening of Grey Gardens at the Toronto...

The selling of Proposition 8.(California's marriage law)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... ON MAY 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution required that gay couples be permitted access to civil marriage in California. The court reasoned that the state constitution's establishment of a fundamental right...

Primitive.(Poem)
January 1, 2009... Of all my body parts it is my tongue I worry about the most primitive, reptilian a mind of its own trapped for centuries capable of rebelling it turns side to side and watches me in the mirror such pleasure it has wrought...

Two painters and a poet.(Your Body Figured)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Your Body Figured by Douglas A. Martin Nightboat Books 146 pages, $14.95 (paper) DOUGLAS A. MARTIN'S new book, Your Body Figured, consists of three prose pieces each focused on a major artist--two painters and poet. The...

Where in the world is Victor Manuel Garcia?(ART MEMO)
January 1, 2009... Three miles from where I live, there's an old Arizona home that was once the nearest thing to Shangri-La in American history. It was called Rancho Siesta. Rancho Siesta was the fabled Arizona abode of male physique George Quaintance...

Novel ideas in a static landscape.(Gay Male Fiction since Stonewall: Ideology, Conflict and Aesthetics)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall: Ideology, Conflict and Aesthetics by Les Brookes Routledge. 230 pages, $95. GAY MALE FICTION Since Stonewall is that rare creature, a new study of contemporary gay writing--in this case, of the...

A writer who peaked early.(Delicious: A Memoir of Glenway Wescott)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Delicious: A Memoir of Glenway Wescott Daniel Diamond Sykes Press. 65 pages, $20. ERNEST HEMINGWAY once complained that Glenway H Wescott made more money from his writing than did he, a man with a wife and family to support....

The young and the Roaring.(Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age by D.J. Taylor Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 384 pages, $29. IN THE ROARING TWENTIES, an elite group of bohemian types and upper-crust men and women became the center of...

The guest.(Poem)
January 1, 2009... The angel I called into my nursery lands a few decades later in my night quite battered too many prayers weigh down his wings The incessant clamor of mortals is too much even for angels I think and am silent I...

Hear the voice of a Bard.(King of Shadows)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... King of Shadows by Aaron Shurin City Lights Books. 171 pages, $16.95 MAINLY KNOWN as one of the royals of the San Franciscan avant-garde poetry scene, Aaron Shurin has produced a collection of 21 short prose pieces, King of...

A bishop's calling.(In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God by Gene Robinson Seabury Books. 176 pages, $25. WAS your Sunday School teacher right about there being a loving God, or does the Bible condemn homosexuality as an "abomination"?...

Days of wine and retail.(Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho by Clayton: Littlewood Cleris Press. 350 pages, $14.95 (paper) CLAYTON LITTLEWOOD and his partner Jorge owned an outlet of the now defunct designer clothing chain, Dirty White Boy, in the heart of...

Continental divide.(Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States by David Rayside University of Toronto Press.440 pages, $35. THE 49TH PARALLEL marks a division of great importance for...

Stray Dog Winter.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Stray Dog Winter by David Francis MacAdam/Cage. 300 pages, $24. David Francis' Stray Dog Winter exemplifies a talented writer trapped by the modern publishing industry. Its early chapters capture the life-changing experience of an...

Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems by Keith Garebian; edited by John Barton Signature Editions. 96 pages, $12.95 (paper) Graced by degrees of subtle citation, Canadian poet Keith Garebian's recent collection of poems inspired by British film...

Selected Poems.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... Selected Poems by Frank O'Hara; edited by Mark Ford Knopf. 288 pages, $30. If Frank O'Hara were still among the quick, he would be 82 years old--four years younger than Nanci Ray Gun. Alas, Frank left his mortal coil in 1966, after a...

Is Katy 'I Kissed a Girl' Perry Homophobic?
January 1, 2009... I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry Capitol Records THE SAPPHIC HIT SONG of last summer, "I Kissed a Girl," is sung by Katy Perry, a minister's daughter and Santa Barbara native whose debut song, "One of the Boys," continues to inhabit...

The devolution of a Diva.(Cher in Concert)(Concert review)
January 1, 2009... Cher in Concert The Colosseum at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas CHER has a long history in Las Vegas. In 1969, she and Sonny were the opening act for Pat Boone at the Frontier Hotel, where they morphed from a folk-rock hippie couple into...

What matters to McNally, after all.(Unusual Acts of Devotion)(Theater review)
January 1, 2009... Unusual Acts of Devotion by Terrence McNally Philadelphia Theatre Company Oct.22-Nov.23, 2008 YOU NEED someone to take care of you, Chick," a neighbor advises his friend in Terrence McNally's new play, Unusual Acts of...

Domestication and its discontents.(Equus)(Theater review)
January 1, 2009... Equus by Peter Shaffer Directed by Thea Sharrock The Shubert Theatre, New York THE IDEA that madness brings you closer to God and to the creative spirit seems a holdover from the 1970's, arguably our last "romantic" era....